


Homecoming

by sistermagpie



Category: The Innocents (1961)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistermagpie/pseuds/sistermagpie
Summary: When people love each other, they find ways to be together.





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> All thanks go to Wendy!!

The train from Ipswich was ten minutes late, and Alan wondered if his parents’ driver hadn’t come and gone from the station without waiting for him. He’d stood on the platform for a good twenty minutes already with his meager luggage before giving up and sitting on one of the wooden benches. The platform was nearly empty. The other passengers had gone away. It was just Alan now, sitting by himself. Alan and an old lady on the next bench knitting something in her lap. On the wall behind her Field Marshal Lord Kitchener encouraged all British men to join their country’s army to defeat the Boche.  
  
_We make a sorry sight,_ thought Alan, unthinkingly echoing his least-favorite teacher at school. One of his least favorite. They were all horrid. It didn’t matter so much to the other boys. They could laugh to their friends about the masters behind their backs and do impressions. But Alan had no friends.  
  
The headmaster said it was up to Alan to make a go of it. “Work harder at your cricket,” he advised him when he found the boy hiding in a stairwell without any trousers. “Boys like a little horseplay. A bit of fun. Learn to laugh along with it and you’ll be alright. That’s part of what we do here, you know. Toughen you up!”  
  
He lent Alan some trousers from the changing room to get back to his room, and told him to keep them for encouragement. Alan did improve his cricket a bit, but not enough to stop the other boys throwing his clothes out on the lawn or jumping him unexpectedly, especially in the night.  
  
“Heard your dad’s got cold feet,” an older boy called Stackham said one morning, giving Alan a hard shove on the way to breakfast. “Heard he shot himself in the toe to get a cushy. Are you a coward like him? I think you are.”  
  
A chilly wind blew down the train platform. Alan pulled his coat tighter and kept waiting. His father was not a coward. Far from it, actually. He went to war and came back with a medal and a ghastly injury that made him hard to look at. Everyone said he was a hero and Alan should be proud.  
  
He was not looking forward to seeing Father on his holiday. He’d tried and tried on the train to think of some way to make things better at home. It was like the Headmaster said. He couldn’t expect anyone to like him if he didn’t make an effort. Only it seemed like all he did was make an effort with no success. Sitting on the hard bench and thinking about the week ahead, Alan wished he was going anywhere but home.  
  
Something moved on the ground by his boot. He jumped a little, thinking it was an animal but it was only a ball of yarn. Alan picked it up.  
  
“S’cuse me, ma’am,” he said, bringing it to the lady at the next bench. “I think you lost this.”  
  
The old lady looked up. She had rosy red cheeks and her skin crinkled like thin paper, but there was something young about her eyes. “Thank you very much, young man. I wouldn’t want to go chasing after that myself on the tracks!” She moved over on the bench. “Why don’t we sit together? It's less chilly that way. My name is Flora. What’s yours?”  
  
Her voice was young too. Cheerful and warm. Like the first ray of sun through the window in early spring. “I’m Alan. Are you waiting for someone?”  
  
“I was,” said Flora. “But I’m not sure he’s coming today. It’s so hard to be sure.”  
  
Alan frowned in sympathy and he lowered his voice. “Is he in the war?”  
  
“War?” said Flora. “Oh no, child. He’s no soldier. I suppose you want to go to war, then? All that marching and shouting and wearing uniforms? I understand boys like that sort of thing.”  
  
“I don't,” Alan admitted before he could stop himself. “The other boys at school can’t wait to go to war, but not me. I’ve got cold feet, I guess.”  
  
“Cold feet?” said Flora, winking at Alan’s boots. “They look fine to me.”  
  
He smiled shyly at the joke. “Cold feet is when you’re too scared for battle,” he said. “My dad was in a battle. He was wounded. He’s got scars on his face now and I try not to stare at them, but they make him look mean.”  
  
“Is he mean?” asked Flora.  
  
Alan nodded. “When I make him angry. I try not to, but I always do something to make him shout. My mother says he’s not well since the war and I must try harder to be good, but I _am_ good—that is, often I am, and it still doesn’t work.” He felt a pressure building in his chest as he talked, remembering all the unpleasant things at home he hadn’t thought about since he’d been at school with other unpleasant things to think about. “I didn’t mean to knock the book off the table and I said I was sorry. But that other time I was just sitting and reading a poem. Mother said he would like that but he didn’t. Sometimes,” he whispered, “I think it’s not even me he’s angry with. He yells at people who aren’t there and calls them names that aren’t Alan.”  
  
Flora nodded and Alan knew she understood. “It’s awful, isn’t it, when grown-ups tell you what to think when you know what you think already, isn’t it? They tell you what’s true when you know it isn’t.”  
  
“Yes, yes! That’s exactly it!” said Alan.  
  
Flora opened the lumpy bag she had with her and offered him a sweet. Butterum. His favorite. “I’ll tell you something,” she said. “You won’t believe me. But sometimes people do that to old ladies too and we don’t like it one bit.”  
  
Alan grinned. He felt as if he had stumbled on a secret club that was—miracle of miracles—considering him as a member.  
  
“Why don’t you come home with me, Alan,” Flora said. “We could have a nice dinner together and you can go home tomorrow.”  
  
Alan was already nodding eagerly when he remembered his family. “I’d be in terrible trouble,” he said. “I’m meant to wait here until Philip comes.”  
  
“Philip?”  
  
“That’s my parents’ driver. He doesn’t like me much, but he has to drive me home because they employ him. He’s very late, though,” he said, looking around. The sky was turning purplish grey as sunset neared.  
  
“Well, then Philip’s the one who ought to be in trouble,” Flora said. “Isn’t he? If your parents are angry I’ll tell them I ordered you home with me. I couldn’t leave you sitting out here in the chill, could I? Then you really would have cold feet.”  
  
Alan considered the idea.  
  
“This is one area where people do listen to old ladies,” Flora added. “People expect us to get a bitty dotty over children, especially spinsters like me. So they're willing to humor us old dears.”  
  
Alan tried to imagine Flora scolding his parents or Philip. No matter how much trouble he got into for it later, he thought it might be worth it. Besides, who’s to say Philip hadn’t actually left him here on purpose hoping somebody would take him off their hands and be done with it? Perhaps they hoped he’d spend the holidays at the train station and go back to school on his own with his return ticket.  
  
“All right,” said Alan. “All right. Let’s go!”  
  
Flora’s house didn’t look like an old lady’s house. At least not like the ones Alan had been to with his grandmother when he was younger. Flora’s house was cheerful with big, cushy chairs and funny carved animals lining the shelves. Tea was already set out when they got there by a warm, friendly maid Flora called Mrs. Crouch. She asked Alan what he wanted for dinner. He said fish sausages and Mrs. Crouch said, “Right away, Master Alan.”  
  
Alan couldn’t remember the last time he got to choose the menu for a meal. Perhaps he never had. When they had finished, Mrs. Crouch brought in a pudding and a kaleidoscope.  
  
“That belonged to my brother, Miles,” said Flora. “I thought you might like it.”  
  
“I do!” Alan held the scope up to his eyes, twisting it so that the jewels fell in ever more bright and complex patterns. “I had one once, but a boy at school stole it. It wasn’t as nice as this one.”  
  
“Then you may have it,” Flora said.  
  
Alan was overcome. “Is Miles old now too?” he asked. It was funny to think of someone as old as Flora having a brother or sister.  
  
“Miles never grew up,” said Flora. “He died when we were quite young.”  
  
“Was he ill?” Alan asked soberly.  
  
“No,” said Flora. “A wicked lady killed him.”  
  
Alan’s eyebrows rose.  
  
“I think she was jealous,” Flora went on primly, eating her pudding. “Because she didn’t have any children of her own she wanted Miles for herself. There was never a boy so clever as Miles. He makes up so many games and stories. Sometimes we go into the costume chest and put on plays.”  
  
Alan tried to picture Miles in his head. Instead he saw Stackham, from school. Stackham was clever, all the schoolmasters said so. He was handsome and cruel and no one ever picked on him. Alan looked at his own reflection in a silver ladle: a shock of dark red hair, large teeth and freckles, and wished Flora would stop talking about Miles. He began to feel as if the other boy, long dead, had entered the room with them. He could almost see him standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, hands in his pockets, sharing a secret smile with Flora as if they were the only two people in the world. Alan wished this Miles would go away. He liked it better when it was just him and Flora and the pudding.  
  
“Why do you talk as if Miles is still here?” he asked resentfully. “I thought you said he died.”  
  
“He did die, of course,” said Flora, friendly as ever. “He would never have left me if the wicked lady hadn’t killed him. But he is also here.” Flora wiped the corners of her mouth daintily with a serviette. “When people love each other, they find a way to stay together after death. I had a governess who taught me that. Now I’m teaching it to you.”  
  
“You mean you believe in ghosts,” said Alan, thinking of his father yelling at men who weren’t there.  
  
“Ghosts are shadows of people who were once alive,” said Flora. “Miles and the others, they’re all still alive. We just need help to be together.” She sighed, her eyes falling on the same doorway where Alan imagined Miles standing. “I see Miles sometimes,” she said. “But we can’t talk to each other, can’t touch each other. That leaves us more alone than ever.”  
  
Alan looked down at his pudding. He didn’t like Flora talking like this. About ghosts. About Miles and how much she missed him. It was Miles she wanted to be having supper with. Miles who ought to have picked the menu.  
  
A boy like Stackham might have been angry at discovering he was unwanted, but for Alan it was almost comforting to have things back to normal.  
  
Mrs. Crouch led him up to a bedroom decorated, he now knew, for the other boy. Some of the toys that lined the shelves were far out of fashion, others up to date. “Ghosts can’t play with toys,” Alan muttered as he climbed under the duvet. The bed felt like a cloud compared to the ones at school. As for his bed at home…  
  
_What have I done?_ he suddenly thought. Left the station when his mother had ordered him to stay put. Gone home with a strange lady without asking permission. What kind of trouble would Alan be in tomorrow? He didn't think he could face it. If only he could stay here with Flora forever, he would never have to face any of it. His mother, his father, the boys at school. But that was impossible. He didn't belong here.  
  
Lying there in the dark, his heart beat under his pajamas—Miles’s pajamas. He felt himself surrounded. On his right Father ranted and Mother scolded. On his left the boys at school laughed and jeered. At the foot of the bed stood Miles, silently agreeing with them all. _He doesn’t belong here,_ he said to the other boys, to Alan’s parents. If Miles didn’t want him there, Flora would send him away. No matter what she said about the two of them being friends, it was Miles she really wanted. Miles she loved.  
  
Alan buried his head deeper beneath the duvet. Perhaps Miles was angry Alan was sleeping there. He’d heard ghost stories where spirits took revenge on those who would dare live in their houses. _Flora said ghosts can’t touch us,_ he reminded himself. _Can’t touch, can’t hurt._ But what if Flora was wrong?  
  
Alan had an idea. He snaked a pale, white arm out of the covers toward the night table. His hand closed around the kaleidoscope. He lowered it to the floor beside the bed and pushed it, rolling, toward the fireplace where he thought Miles hovered. “Take it,” he whispered. “I know it’s not mine. It’s all yours. Take it. Take it all. Just don’t chase me away. Not yet.” A haunted house with Flora in it was far better than Alan’s world at home or at school.  
  
He took a deep breath and popped his head above the duvet. By the fireplace a shape was forming, he thought. Just the size of a ten-year-old boy. “Don’t make me leave,” Alan whispered to it. “Let me stay here a little longer. Don’t make me go. I don’t want to go.”  
  
The figure became more distinct and drifted closer. Alan drew back instinctively, but the ghost did not seem menacing. It was almost a comforting presence close up. Miles _was_ handsome, Alan confirmed, but without the haughty arrogance that Stackham always had. This boy, Alan suddenly understood, knew what it was like to be unwanted and lonely. In his mind he saw images of jeering boys in old-fashioned uniforms and a fine gentleman who was quick to laugh but cold and unfeeling with no time to waste on little boys. Behind him was another, more sinister figure, always watching and waiting for what Alan didn't know. Miles didn’t want Alan to leave, he realized. Miles simply needed help.  
  
Alan reached out a hand in the dark. Ghosts couldn’t touch, as Flora said, but this was something like a touch. Alan felt Miles slip inside him like a letter into an envelope. For one glorious moment Alan felt two hearts beating under his pajama jacket and he was whole. Then he felt nothing at all.

  


“Pear butter! Mrs. Crouch you are a treasure.”  
  
Mrs. Crouch shook her head. The young man was irrepressible.  
  
“What time are we going to the park, Flora?”  
  
“I thought we’d wait a while, dear. Four o’clock, perhaps. Fewer governesses about.”  
  
“It’ll go much easier with me with you, won’t it? No one will notice if I talk to other children. People will think you’re my grandmother. Imagine that.”  
  
Flora laughed. “All too right, Miles. I won’t be able to keep up with you.”  
  
The little boy across the breakfast table reached out and patted her wrinkled hand. “Not for long, my dear. Not once we find the right little girl and we know just what to look for now.”  
  
It would take some time, Flora thought, before she got used to Miles looking different. Though he was already looking more like himself than Alan, who was not so homely as he had seemed at the station. The awkwardness, it seemed, was more a matter of posture and expression than bone structure in the end.  
  
“You ought not be afraid of dying, you know, my dear,” Miles said. “Or being dead.”  
  
“I suppose one gets used to it,” Flora said.  
  
“That won’t be necessary, my dear,” said Miles. “You won't be dead for long, Flora. Not long at all.”


End file.
